Visiting the oncologist

Today was my regular three-month visit with my oncologist. My CA 15-3 tumour marker has gone down to 29! That's *half* of what it was when I first found out I had mets, and is definitely within normal range. This is fantastic news!!! It means that the cancer is staying put (maybe even having a bit of a sleep) instead of running around looking for new places to hang out.

I'll be having an abdominal CT scan in the next two weeks just to confirm that there's nothing going on in my liver. We'll also scan my pelvis at the same time because the last time I had a CT scan, there were two teensy-tiny sclerotic lesions in my left hemi-pelvis. That's the side of my hip and back that hurts... so it's possible that the pain isn't just from my back. I'm pretty sure that we're not going to find anything important in the scan but it's important to do them. I think my oncologist might switch me to CT scans every six months instead of once a year, which I'd like.

Speaking of pain, we talked about my lower back and hip as well. She said that I have a *very* bad back, especially for someone of my age... and that there's nothing much that can be done for it. There's degeneration around two discs just above my sacrum. I don't see how this is going to get better

My theory about the pain is this: much of the pain from there is caused by bone against bone; plus I think that there's a nerve being pinched sometimes - not the sciatic nerve, but one of the ones in that bundle of nerves - that's causing pain in my left leg and hip, and in my effort to not be in pain there, I may or may not have given myself bursitis in that hip.

I talked to my oncologist about tis theory and she agrees that this might make sense. She also said that she wouldn't have the first clue how to treat any of this - which isn't a surprise, since she's an oncologist :) This is definitely something that I'll be wanting to talk to my family doctor about.

We also talked about a PET scan. She said that if I really, really wanted one that I could go ahead and do it. But she also said that the PET scan is sort of like a bone scan in that it shows areas of increased tracer takeup, but those areas are fuzzy and aren't necessarily diagnostic. As well, the scan doesn't show things under 1cm and she won't be able to treat anything that shows up unless it also showed up and was measurable on a CT (or MRI) scan.

She did say that some people will do a PET scan if they want to surgically remove (resect) cancer from an organ like the liver and they want to be sure that there's no cancer anywhere else.

I guess if she did PET scans all the time she might feel differently - many people in the US have PET/CT scans instead of just bone scans, CTs or MRIs - but this is the way things are here.

So based on all of that, plus the fact that my tumour markers are so low, and because I'm having a CT scan within two weeks, I'm not going to do a PET scan right now. I'm ok with this because I get other scans and I don't feel like I'm not being scanned or that the cancer won't be caught early enough. I'll keep the PET in the back of my mind, though, in case anything changes.

Ian's home!

Ian arrived home sometime this morning and we've spent the day sleeping and catching up on tv. I haven't been sleeping well over the last few days and I'm very tired; it'll take a few days to get back to normal, I think.

You know how it is when you get so tired that your head hurts and you're not really able to think? I'm so there. I feel like I'm in dreamland, with everything sort of floating by.

It's going to be an early night for us tonight... and maybe tomorrow... and the next day... until I feel human again.

Oh - it seems that blogger was having a hard time publishing my blog for the last few days. I think that's been sorted out now.

Thinking about sewing... again

I've made a new decision about what I want to sew next. I'd been thinking that I wanted something that was easy to wear, comfortable, and that didn't look or feel fussy. So many of the dresses I love are more dressy and I just wouldn't wear them every day. Sure, I might wear them when I go out somewhere - like if I leave the house and do something other than walk to the nearby grocery store or walk around the block - but I don't do much these days. It would be different if I was working, of course, but I'm not.

So anyways, I wanted to make something that I would just throw on if I was bumming around at home or going to the store or whatever. And I wanted something that would look nice on me and maybe even be a little flattering, The pattern I've chosen is this simple wrap dress from the 1960s:

As you can see, it has an a-line skirt, and is quite simple. I'm going to try to make it with short sleeves to start. There are actually two front panels, one on top of the other, so I won't need to worry about wind or anything like that. I've traced out the pieces and need to grade them up. I was going to do that this evening but I ended up watching the original The Picture of Dorian Gray (a fantastic movie, by the way, and definitely worth seeing).

If the dress works out, I might make it in different fabrics. I've been buying vintage pattern/fabric combos and I now have a large collection of fabric from the 50s... it's so pretty, and most of it is still current and pretty.

There are so, so, so many dresses I want to make.... so many, in fact, that the choice can be overwhelming sometimes. For example, I'd still like to make a couple of good-quality slips to wear underneath many of the dresses I still want to make as much of the fabric I have is sheer. I have a few slip patterns that I've collected and put away, and I need to check them and see which (if any) will make slips that will work.

But one step at a time: for now, I'll try this dress, and see if it works. If it doesn't, then I'll try something else.

There are better ways to live than this

Over the last couple of days I've been spending too much time on the internet, especially on one of the cancer support boards. I care deeply about many women there and normally check in on a regular basis to see how they're doing. Once in a while I also like to read and shake my head at the drama - it can be compelling in a train-crash kind of way, you know? - but lately I've actually allowed myself to become *part* of the drama. As a result, I'm giving too much of myself into this manufactured drama. This isn't a good thing, because it takes so much energy, distorts my perspective, and isn't really *living*.

Once I realized that this was happening I went out. I felt that I just get out of the house and reconnect with the world around me a little. I went to Chapters and bought some Stephen King books to fill in my collection and then I went to the mall to wander around. I'd have gone for a walk outside to enjoy the signs of spring but it was pouring rain. I'll do that another day.

I felt so much better just getting away from the computer that I spent most of the evening lying on the couch and reading. It was so relaxing and invigorating all at the same time.

I think I'm going to try to back away a bit from the support board and to spend less time on the computer for a while. There's more to life and living than immersing myself in an online support board... and I don't need to immerse myself to give or receive support.

Lazy days

Today's movie was not a horror movie, which might surprise some of you. :) Nope, instead I watched The Green Mile, a movie based on a Stephen King serialized novel of the same name. It's been a while since I read the novel, but as I recall it was pretty good, aside from the repetition that you always get with serial novels. The story focuses on a healer on death row - the green mile of the title - back in the 1930s.

The movie is fantastic; at least as good as the novel, or maybe better. The novel was short which usually translates into a better movie (at least for Stephen King adaptations... his long novels have too much stuff in them to really make a good movie). Maybe it's because Tom Hanks is starring, or maybe it's for some other reason, but the movie is compelling. I'd planned to sort of watch it and surf the internet but ended up watching more than surfing... and it's a rare drama that holds my attention that closely.

The ending was a little sad for me, though. Tom Hank's character ended up living a long time with even longer to go.... and he didn't want it. I'd give almost anything to live decades ahead, let alone hundreds of years ahead. I think I'm feeling a bit melancholy.

No matter what I felt about the ending, the movie is still fantastic and I highly recommend it.

I did manage to do a little bit of Internet surfing done. Mostly I was looking for specific patterns on eBay... and amazingly enough, some of them are actually up for sale! I'm not going to say which ones they are because I don't want to advertise that I actually *want* them... I'm hoping that their prices won't go through the roof.

More movies for me

Has anyone else noticed that there's not that much on tv these days? The shows that are on right now are shows that both Ian and I watch and since he's gone, I'm not going to watch them until he gets back.

So I watched movies today. Yay for movies!

First up was Apt Pupil, a movie we've owned for a while but that I've never seen. It's based on a very good novella by Stephen King. I haven't read the story in quite a long time, but it seems to me that the movie and the book were different. That doesn't mean that the movie is bad - in fact, like other adaptations of King's shorter works, it's quite good.

The movie is about a high-school student who discovers that someone in his own community was part of the Holocaust. The boy confronts the man and demands that he tell him about what really happened then. The telling of these things changes both of them, of course, in believable ways. I enjoyed the movie although there were a couple of scenes that bothered me. I know that no animals were hurt... but while I can watch just about any atrocity to humans, I can't watch anything bad happen to animals. Aside from those scenes, the movie was quite watchable.

Also look for a supporting performance by Fringe star Joshua Jackson. If that fine-looking gentleman isn't enough reason to watch this movie, I don't know what is. :)

The second movie is one I watched On Demand, called The Chair. It's about a haunted house where the spirit of a man first scares, and then possesses, a Master's psychology student with a history of mental illness. The movie is quite spooky even if it feels a little slow in the middle. There's hardly any blood or gore, either. For the most part, the movie is quite subtle and depends heavily on the lead actress. She does an ok job of it - the viewer can clearly see the difference between the normal and the possessed psychology student.

I did find some of the ending parts of the story somewhat unbelievable... I might have missed the clues before, but some of the things that happened at the end didn't seem to make sense and seemed to come from out of the blue. I might watch it again tomorrow just to see whether I really did miss some clues. Even though the end is weird, the movie is watchable and interesting and I'd recommend it.

I'd better not talk

I seem to have lost my voice... when I try to speak, out comes a croak-whisper. I don't remember the last time I lost my voice and I hope that this doesn't mean that I'm getting really sick. Or the swine flu.

Ian's going away for the next few days so I'll have the place to myself. I always miss him when he goes away but it's also nice to spend time on my own sometimes. Being on my own isn't going to be as fun if I'm sick for the entire time. So lets hope that I'm not actually getting sick.

Sunday afternoon movie

We do occasionally watch movies on Sundays, especially when it isn't all that nice out. Today we watched [Rec], which is the Spanish version that is Quarantine... except that [Rec] came first. That's right, [Rec] was released in 2007, and Quarantine in 2008; moreover, Quarantine is almost completely a shot-for-shot remake of [Rec]. It's almost like someone decided that [Rec] was a good movie - which it is - but that it needed to be shot in English. With a couple of small additions.

Both movies are good but each had different strengths. I had very much disliked the same protagonist in Quarantine as I just didn't find her believable enough. I very much liked the female protagonist in [Rec] and thought that the actress portraying her was real and believable. Then again, I felt that the firefighters in Quarantine were portrayed as real characters, which I liked, whereas the ones in [Rec] were more one-dimensional.

I did feel that some of the action - namely, shutting down and quarantining the building - was something that was more likely to happen in the US, making Quarantine slightly more believable to me. Of course I don't know much about military action like this in other countries. It's possible that any country would be able to respond that quickly and forcefully.

The biggest difference between the two movies is in the end scene. Many of the Quarantine additions were to this end scene, which meant that it is much longer. I liked the shorter ending in [Rec] because I thought the longer English one dragged on. Being shorter, the one in [Rec] was tenser, scarier, and more powerful.

Overall, I think that I liked [Rec] slightly more than Quarantine, mostly because of how much scarier it was. Somehow, even though Quarantine was shot-to-shot the same in almost every way, those shots in [Rec] managed to be tenser and scarier. Having a better actress as the protagonist doesn't hurt, either.

Both movies are well worth seeing and I highly recommend both of them. If you've already seen Quarantine, see [Rec] anyway; it's worth the hour and a half of your time.

If it's Saturday, it must be movie day

Ever since the last Toronto International Film Festival, I've been wanting to see Martyrs. The movie generated quite a bit of controversy in France; apparently it was given an 18+ rating, which is equivalent to banning the movie. We rented and watched the movie tonight and I thought the movie was fantastic. I think I know why it got the rating it did: there's quite a bit of killing and torture everywhere. It isn't "torture porn", because every scene is required and has no more torture, beating, killing, or blood than is absolutely necessary to tell he story..

The movie centers around Lucie, who has been kidnapped, beaten, and tortured as a child, and her close friend Anna, who will do everything she can to help Lucie. The movie is clearly divided into two parts. The first half tells the story of Lucie finding the people who kidnapped, beat, and tortured her... and what she does with that knowledge. Lucie is clearly the main focus of the first half of the movie even though Anna is present and functioning.

This focus changes in the second half of the story. Here, Anna takes Lucie's place and is tortured and beaten herself. The second half does sometimes feel as though it's dragging a bit because the viewer is presented with image after image after image of Anna in the torture chamber, mostly receiving beatings. There is no soundtrack during this part of the movie; there is no music to cover these sounds, which also makes the viewer that much more aware of passing time..

This is an extremely powerful movie and although we highly recommend it, it's definitely not for the faint of heart. There's more going on that what the viewer sees... and it's up to the viewer to put much of the story together. I won't tell you what the point of the story is because that's something you need to find out for yourself. I think I would like to see this movie again because I think that it's a multi-layered movie and I could learn more from the extra scrutiny.

After watching that deep and difficult movie, we decided to watch the original Dawn of the Dead, one of the classic Romero zombie movies. In this one, our protagonists hole themselves up in a shopping mall. I'd love to have complete, free access to a mall - it's like a dream come true! Except for the zombies, of course, and anyone who knows anything about protecting oneself from zombies knows that a mall isn't a defensible location. There are too many open spaces.

That aside, this is quite a good, if slightly long, zombie movie. The people behave like you'd expect people to behave in this situation, and the movie does a fine job of showing what it would be like for people to move forward into the unknown. The sets feel claustrophobic, the people start snapping at each other, there are warring factions, and all along, there's the doomsday knowledge that the zombies are trying to eat them. This is also a movie that's definitely worth watching. Of course there's some gore and whatnot, but it *is* a zombie movie... and what's a zombie movie without zombie blood (and zombie humour)?

So much fighting

People are fighting over at YSC. Another met-sister has died, with almost no warning; and on the same day that her death was announced, someone who'd had stage II cancer posted a message asking everyone to pretend she'd died, and what would we say, because she was worried about having to do scans. Yeah, she has PTSD, but the timing of this message could have been better. Especially since she said that she checked t he mets boards before posting anything. Hmm.

Needless to say, the responses to the post have been mixed; generally, those that didn't have mets supported her and those that have mets were unsupportive. There are exceptions on both sides, of course, but that's generally how the cards fell this time.

I know this'll surprise you, but that's how the cards fall most of the time. There's a decided rift between the two camps that is becoming greater and greater. It seems that the ones who don't have mets think that the metsters are all bitches (they *do* tend to tell it like it is, with little softening), and the metsters think the ones without mets are narcissistic and insensitive. Again, there are exceptions on both sides.

And you know, both sides are right. Many of the non-mets people *can* be narcissistic and their complaints can come across as insensitive, unnecessary, and boring. Many of the metsters *can* be bitchy... and the bitchiest are the ones who've just had a bad turn. If you've just found out your cancer has taken up space in your brain or you lungs or your liver, you're not going to have much patience for people who are complaining about things that seem silly.

There used to be more understanding and compassion between the two sides. But now it seems like people are spoiling for a fight and every time something little happens, it blows up into a huge brawl. I know that things get worse when people die... but people still need help when other people die. I wish... I wish both sides would see things from the other's perspective. I wish things people were getting along. It's getting to be so much worse on that support board that it's not a good place to be, a lot of the time.

Sleep, glorious sleep

I'm sure you're not surprised to know that I was quite tired after the conference. There were late nights, early mornings, lots of travel, and emotional highs and lows all weekend, which left me exhausted.

Yesterday we also changed our mattress topper: through the winter, we put an electric bedwarmer on to make the bed warm, and through the summer, we have a 2" memory foam mattress topper. The electric bedwarmer (it's a mattress topper that's like an electric blanket) can't be used with the memory foam because heat is what activates the foam.

The memory foam is way, way, way more comfortable than anything else.... and it makes my back and hips feel so very much better. I slept almost the entire clock around yesterday - from 11pm Tuesday to 8pm yesterday - and I got another good 12 hours of sleep today.

I'm starting to feel almost human again... like I could actually do things again. But first, I think I need just a little more sleep.

The conference

I would have written much earlier about the trip and the conference, but I didn't get back until yesterday at noon and I was too tired to write anything to anyone!

I was flying from Philadelphia to Kitchener via Detroit with a 45min connection time and the Philly-Detroit flight was delayed. We left the gate, found a mechanical problem concerning the airflow and heating/cooling system in the passenger cabin, so went back to the gate for a fix. We were there for quite a while before we left the gate again and ended up in a 45min taxi queue. All in all, my flight was 2h late which meant that I landed in Detroit after my connection landed in Kitchener, so I spent the night in Detroit. It wasn't so bad; the airline put us up at a nearby hotel and there was a shuttle going right there. Plus they put me on a flight for the next morning and checked me in.

Aside from that travel adventure, all of the traveling was uneventful. I spent the entire conference weekend in the hotel although I was up late each night socializing. Friday night we ended up having a gathering in one of the meeting-ish areas of the hotel lobby. We ordered pizza and talked and chatted with each other; it was fun even if it was overwhelming. On Saturday, a bunch of people went into the city (we were in a suburb) for dinner but I was too tired to go. They didn't get back until 11:30pm that night, after which we hung out for about 2 hours.

One of the reasons that I so much wanted to go to the conference was to see the other women with mets. Talking to them online is one thing but meeting them in person is quite another. No one looks exactly like I imagined they would - even if they had pictures in their signature! Almost no one puts of pictures of their everyday selves there; they put up their best pictures :) Most people said that they thought I was taller. I think that means they thought I was of normal height :)

I also met some of other women from Calgary, which was fantastic. The care in the US can be very different from what we get in Canada that it's great to compare notes with other Canadian women. I'm very much hoping that we'll keep in touch.

There's something about meeting women from other places that have advanced breast cancer that's quite reassuring. Almost everyone has more cancer than I do, and they are all handling it. Even if they have to have awful treatments or they're on steroids to reduce inflammation for brain mets, they're still managing to have as good a life as possible. From that, I figure that when my cancer starts hanging out in other organs, I'll manage. Even if I have to have an awful treatment, I'll manage. I see other people doing it, so I know I'll be able to.

This isn't to say that everyone is good friends just because we all share the same disease. Having cancer doesn't make us all like each other or change who we are. We might be a bit more tolerant of each other (especially of anyone with brain mets on steroids), but we don't necessarily like each other. That's ok because it keeps the "hanging out" groups small. I spent most of my time with some number of a group of 10 or 12 of us. I liked that. I knew of another 10 or 15 people there, and while I saw them and could say hello, I didn't really spend much time with them. And that was ok, too, because no one was left alone.

So that was the social life (a huuuuge part of the conference), but I didn't just travel all that way to hang out with a bunch of people. I got a grant to go to the conference which means that I had to attend the actual conference :)

The main conference speeches talked about the new research areas which include targeted therapies like Herceptin and Avastin. These therapies (and the ones they're researching) target cancer cell-specific actions and block them off or change them in some way so that the cells die. Of course this means that they need to find out other cancer cell-specific actions. They're still working on that, but there does seem to be enough pathways known right now on which the drugs could work that would benefit many of us. One benefit of these therapies is that the side effects are almost non-existent since they have little to no effect on non-cancer cells. Pretty cool, huh? I definitely thought so.

I guess these types of therapies are monoclonal antibodies, which is a topic I remember reading about back in high school. They knew about them then but they didn't really know what to do with them or how they could be used. I think I remember back then that they hoped it would help cure or treat cancer... but clearly, the mechanisms by which cancer grows are much more complicated than they might have thought (or than they might think now, for all I know) 20-odd years ago. Still, I have hope that now that they've come out with a few of these drugs, more and more will be available. Plus I think that the research itself is super-cool.... at least until they start doing serious research into nanobodies or nanonites.

Anyways, back to the conference. Aside from the main speech, the conference had workshops on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I went to a workshop on Sexuality and Intimacy. The speaker was a man, which is unfortunate because the workshop wasn't well-attended even though many, many people asked questions about sex in the "ask-the-experts" forum the next day.

Anyways, I learned that some anti-depressants have a negative effect on sexuality and if the anti-depressant can't be changed, the woman can take Cialis so that she's more interested and more able. I also learned that it's important not to put all the eggs in one basket in an all-or-nothing way: just because a woman might not be able to have intercourse doesn't exclude all types of sexuality and intimacy. I think that these ideas are useful for non-breast cancer people, too. Who knew that women could take Cialis? And that it would have a positive effect? I didn't before, but I do now.

Sunday I went to a Pain Management workshop. That was also small, which was fine, because I function better in a small group setting. That talk was quite interesting. The speaker focused a lot on telling the healthcare people not only that one is in pain, which is very important, but also to try to describe that pain. She also talked about the fact that pain, and therefore pain control, is individual. Each of us feels pain in a unique way and each of us responds to painkillers in a different way. Some of us metabolize these drugs differently than others, and that's ok. Some of us need more of the drugs than someone with comparable pain, and that's ok, too. I came away feeling reassured that I'm not a freak and that it's ok to want to get rid of the pain.

Of course not all pain is cancer pain... and in talking casually with other conference participants, I learned some things about the pain I'm experiencing. As a reminder, I have pain in my lower back, in my hip joint when I bend my leg in certain ways, and on the outside of my hip.

The person I was talking to said that she had pain in that exact spot on the outside of the hip and that hers was bursitis. I looked that up on the internet and I could very well have bursitis there as a side-effect of trying to walk with the pain in my lower back that spreads down my leg, and the occasional pain from my hip joint. After all, my mutant elbow (which is down by about half now) is bursitis and caused by not gripping the cane properly. It stands to reason that if that could cause mutant elbow, walking badly could cause swelling and pain in the hip.

So after all of this, I think I want to see a physiotherapist and/or chiropractor (or an orthopedic person) to see if we can't get me back in balance in such a way as to get rid of the pain in my lower back AND deal with the pain in my hip as well. There's no sense getting rid of one if the other's still there if they're connected, right? I might get rid of my limp and my cane yet!

Overall, I'm very, very happy that I went to the conference this past weekend. I'm happy that I met the people I did, spent time with the people I did, and learned the things that I did. I wish that I could go to more of these, but there's only so much that I can do and so much money that I have. I'll go as often as I can, though, because being with my met-sisters is good for me in a way that I can hardly explain.

Leaving on a jet plane

I've got everything together and I'm pretty well all packed. Believe it or not, I managed to put everything into one small bag that I can carry-on by putting the strap across my body. If I squish the stuff in the bag, I think I could even fit my purse inside. Now *that's* good packing.

I've been having trouble with my hip again today... and while I'd like to think that my hip will be fine tomorrow, what if it isn't? I don't want to be lugging a suitcase behind me while hobbling around with the cane; having one hand free makes getting around so much easier.

I won't be updating my blog until Sunday night or Monday, so I hope you have as fun a weekend as I (hope I) will!

Where did this come from?

You know that I'm walking with a cane because my hip is sore and hurts when I walk without it. Today, for some reason, my hip has been in agony - worse than ever before. I've been barely able to walk and stairs.... stairs... stairs are almost too much for me. I stood at the top of the upstairs earlier, unsure that I could actually go to the main floor. When I next head upstairs for bed, I'm not coming back downstairs. And even just sitting or lying down, I'm getting wicked, agonizing pain in my hip. Where did this pain come from?

I haven't had pain like this since before we got the sternal mets pain under control. I've taken Percocet (and I hope it starts working soon - holy oh crap my hip hurts) even though I don't really want to take it. I sleep too long when I take then Percocet, and I'm leaving for the conference early Friday morning and need to get stuff done tomorrow. I tell you, this pain is sucking the life out of me.

I met up with a friend of mine the other day, and another woman she knows had a PET scan done in Mississauga. A PET scan is standard-of-care for metastatic breast cancer in the US but not here in Canada as it's expensive and there aren't many machines around. This scan uses a radioactive tracer (like a bone scan does, although it uses a different tracer) that bonds to glucose. A hot spot, where glucose uptake is higher, indicates that there's something fast-growing in the body and so can detect metastatic cancers at a much earlier stage than can a CT, MRI, or bone scan.

The woman who had the PET scan done has the same oncologist as me, so I could probably ask my oncologist to request one... the issue would be paying for it. The center in Mississauga charges about $2400, which I assume is on par with other centers. There is a possibility that my insurance might pay for it so when I get back from the conference, I'll give them a call. I see my oncologist in early May and have scans coming up in June and including a PET scan in with the others isn't a bad idea.

As an aside - reconstructing images in any of these scanning methods is very difficult... and also very very cool. It's a kind of "big technology" that I find awesome and interesting. I think I'm supposed to have enough math to actually understand how stuff works but I'd rather just sit back and admire it all.

Living with mets.... and the conference

I'm looking forward to the conference this weekend. I'll get to learn things and to see and be around people who get me in ways that other people who have breast cancer but not mets can't. It's not that these people with non-metastatic breast cancer can't understand me but there are a number of reasons why I end up feeling uncomfortable.

One reason is that I can end up feeling like I'm on display - like I'm the boogeyman who embodies their worst fears. Then there are some people with earlier stage breast cancer who "just want to understand those of us with mets" - which is fine if they just go to the conference, but I've heard people express the desire to listen to our stories. This idea leaves me very, very uncomfortable, as though someone is trying to take from me more than I'm prepared to give. It's one thing if I volunteer information; it's quite another if someone is trying to get it from me for their own purposes.

The other thing is that when mets people get together, there's a kind of shared history - we all know we've got a terminal illness and that colours what we say and do. Some of the humour is pretty black, I'll tell you :) The point is that women with non-metastatic breast cancer don't usually have that history and so it has to be explained... which interrupts the flow of conversation. I know that this might seem to be a little thing, but this shared history and point of view is something that I treasure.

So with all that said, one of the reasons I was especially looking forward to this conference is that it's aimed at women with mets - women like me. There's at least one woman who's going who doesn't have mets.... she's going because she wants to say goodbye to one of the women who isn't doing well. That would be fine and normal if they knew each other well.... but these two women aren't even friends.

WTF? How creepy is that? What the hell is this woman thinking? She's gone and invited herself to this conference just for the purpose of being with one of the women who's not doing well.

I hope this woman decides not to go to the conference. It's just so.... rude of her to have invited herself so that she can be creepy and stalkerish. All I can say right now is that I have a cane and I'm not afraid to use it. I don't want my friend to have to deal with this ... this.... b!tch. Grrr.

I'm still looking forward to the *rest* of the conference, and to hanging out with my friends.

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday is a great day - almost as good as Christmas and my birthday. The Easter bunny pays a visit and leaves chocolate. Yum :) I don't get as much chocolate as I did when I was a kid, but the quality of the chocolate is better these days.

We spent the weekend at Ian's parent's and ate way too much yummy food. It was quite a relaxing weekend spent mostly sitting around and watching tv.

I just wish the dishes had done themselves and the house had cleaned itself before we got home. Alas, these objects aren't capable of doing anything other than existing. The dishes will get done: I plan to make supper tomorrow which will need clean dishes, so I'll have to do them. Daily existence can be somewhat less fun than a restful weekend.

Shopping for new things for Easter

Almost everybody likes to have new things for Easter. Spring is springing and it's nice to have a new thing to bring in the new season.

I really will get around to sewing a new thing for me, but in the meantime, I've been looking at new beads and stuff. One of the suppliers from which I occasionally purchase beads is liquidating all of their inventory. Everything was 40% off a couple of weeks ago and now is 50% off. Not only that, I got a coupon code for an extra 15% off from another site. The price might go down even further but I don't know how far down the prices will go.... or whether the coupon will last long enough to be used with a greater discount.

So of course I want to just go and buy, buy, buy. I started by going through all of the listings and adding anything that I thought I might like. That total came to $1250 (before the 15% off coupon), which is obviously too much to spend. I started taking things away and I've got things almost to a reasonable number. Most of what I have in my shopping cart is findings as opposed to beads. At these prices, the sterling silver stuff is well below the current silver prices. I've also been thinking of using copper for some designs because some colours go well with copper. The copper is much cheaper than sterling silver.

The most expensive item in my shopping cart is a strand of opal round beads. They're quite small at 5 or 6mm but they appear to be good quality. I've been hemming and hawing about buying the opal, because I love it, but there are other types of beads that I could buy for the same price.

Clearly I need to think about whether I want to buy all of this stuff. There are of course other beads and whatnot that I'd love to buy from other sites and I have to be sure that I'm going to get the best value for my money. 50% off isn't a bargain if I don't need or couldn't use the stuff, right?

Getting ready for next weekend

I've been meaning to do some sewing for the conference in Philadelphia this coming weekend but I just haven't been able to make myself do enough work on it. I suppose if I worked flat out for the rest of the week I'd be able to get the dress done... but I'm trying to conserve energy for the conference.

It turns out that there are 25 or 30 women with mets from the YSC board going to this conference - that's a lot! Most of them, including me, are arriving Friday night and are all going to get together and talk. No non-mets people allowed to that talk! It's limiting to have non-mets people present when women with mets are talking; too often they don't want to hear some of the things we need to talk about. Like the treatments and the fears. And the terminal aspect of the illness. Too many non-mets women try to minimize these things because it scares them.... but we need to talk about them, too. And I, at least, don't want to censor myself.

Some of the women who were at Westport with me will be at the conference. Three of them have taken a turn for the worse: one with dural mets, one with possible brain mets, and one whose cancer has gone everywhere - her bones, her brain, her liver, and it was already in her lungs. Once cancer goes to so many places, time is very, very short. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that this will be the last time I see this woman.

Of course there's more to the conference than visiting.... there's the conference itself :) I'm hoping to learn something from the workshops and to meet even more women with mets from all over the place.

So you can see how the trip might be exhausting, between being at the conference for two full days and learning stuff and the emotional aspect of being around women who aren't doing well, and why I want to be sure I have enough energy built up beforehand so that I'm not exhausted while I'm there or afterwards. In Westport I was tired before the weekend was out because I did too much, too fast. This time, I'll go slower. And if I don't end up finishing my sewing before I go, well, I'll finish it up after the conference. It's more important to get through the conference than to sew for it.

Pamidronate day... and some thoughts

I had my Pamidronate today - on a different day than usual, which means that I get a different nurse to disconnect it than usual. I like today's nurse a lot; she's always very nice and seems to really, genuinely care about people. My usual Monday nurse tends to be cranky and brusque.

I hadn't seen the Thursday nurse in a very long time (she bought earrings from me before, and if I had anything to show her she'd have bought more today) so we did some catching up. I found myself talking about how my activities are limited and how I'm ok with that. Before, I would plan to do this, that, and the other thing in a day, but I can't do as much now. So if I get one thing done in a day, that's good, and any more than that is a bonus. What surprised me about talking about this was that I really felt like I have accepted my limitations. I knew I'd been feeling emotionally ok but I didn't realize just how well I actually felt.

We also talked about mindfulness. I don't remember lots and lots of my past, not just because I was drinking or doing drugs, but because I simply wasn't paying attention. I coasted through so many years without being emotionally involved or stopping to take a look at where I was, what I was doing, or how I was feeling. I feel very different now. I try to pay attention to what I'm doing - to be mindful - so that I can look back and remember it. I feel like I've wasted too much of my life by just not being there. I want to feel like I'm really living whatever life I have left.

Friends of my dad

My sister started a new job and has been meeting a lot of new people. It turns out that one of the people she met was a good friend of our dad's in the last place he worked - what a small world! Apparently my dad started out grumpy (which he could definitely be, although I think he was shy, too) and then turned into this sociable guy, telling jokes and stories about growing up and watching movies and stuff. He used to tell my sisters and me the same stories but I don't remember them very well.

My dad's friend was female, which is no surprise, because my dad was a charmer from a very early age. He used to tell me that he'd talk to anyone, no matter what they looked like, and that that was how he charmed all of these girls. He was very easy-going with people, especially women, and tended to accept them for who they were in a non-judgmental way.

Finding out about my dad's friend and hearing what she said is eye-opening, because while I knew my dad had friends, I never thought any of us would know them or hear them talk about my dad as they saw him. We were his kids and even though we ended up developing adult-type relationships with him, I think to him we were always his little girls and so he wouldn't have been the same person with other people as he was with us. And from my perspective, I knew that my dad was an adult and not just my dad. Finding out about his friend gave me a more well-rounded view of who my dad really was.

It made me feel good to know that my dad was well-liked and that he was someone I would have like to have spent more time with even had I not been his daughter. My dad was nowhere near perfect but he was a pretty good guy and a role model. I wish I could tell him this now, or that I'd known before he died so that I could have told him.

Finished with the jewelry... on with the sewing

I delivered the finished necklace and earring sets to the bride this afternoon. I'm quite pleased with the result, especially because the final product looks almost exactly like the sketch. The first picture is the design (done by laying out the beads in the pattern) and the second is the actual necklace. They don't have the same background because they weren't taken under the same conditions, but you can see see the important stuff.

The big oval beads are dyed mother-of-pearl, the light teardrop briolettes are mystic blue quartz, and the other two dark beads are apatite. These beads, especially the mother-of-pearl with its swirls of colour, will go perfectly with the turquoise bridesmaid's dresses. The bride also wanted something that would be suitable for a beach wedding AND be wearable after the wedding. I think these pieces fit those requirements, too.... not to mention that the pieces are lovely. :)

Now that I'm done with this project, I can get back to sewing. Yay! I didn't work on any of that today but I hope to get some stuff done tomorrow. It's going to be a busy week; Ian's got an appointment Wednesday morning and I have Pamidronate Thursday morning. And of course the Easter Bunny comes this weekend :) As long as I don't sleep my afternoons away, I should be able to make some headway on the dress for the trip next weekend. I hope.

Finally, a design

I finally figured out exactly how to do the necklaces for the bridesmaids. As you know, I was having trouble with the 3-way or Y connections; I didn't know how to attach a drop to a beaded chain and still make it look good. My first thought was to attach each part to a closed loop but that didn't look right. So this morning I went looking for some type of connector, but the only ones I found that I even remotely liked were $2 each, and I need 20 of them. Scratch that.

After some experimentation I figured out a way to use some small spacers I have. The wire I'm using is very fine (26 gauge) because one of the stones in the design has very tiny holes, and I can fit three of those wires in the hole on the spacers.

I've finished two of the necklaces this evening and I'll do the other two tomorrow. The earrings won't take any time at all.

Tonight we watched Zombie Strippers!, a movie about strippers that become zombies and end up being super-strippers. They get lots of attention and guys coming to the club, and they have stripper battles and stuff. There's a lot of funny dialog and funny lines. You might be surprised to know that there's also a lot of nudity, a lot of stripping, and a lot of gore. If you like all of that, you'll love this movie. :)

Much about nothing

I should have more to talk about today because in theory, I would have done stuff. But really, all I did was go to the store to get milk and cereal... and that's not much of anything.

Sure, I played with the jewelry for the bridesmaids a bit, but I didn't finish anything. I don't like the way that I'm connecting the beads in the necklace right now. I'm using rings at the three-way points where I have things dropping below the necklace itself but I don't like the look. I wish I had some silversmithing knowledge because I think I might like to have solid circular plates with tiny holes to which I can connect each of the three points. I'll have to think of something else. I'm not without ideas and I'll have to do some experimentation tomorrow to get it looking like it does in my head.

And yeah, we watched a DVD that came with Just After Sunset by Stephen King. The DVD is a moving-comic version of N., one of the stories in the book. While it didn't follow the story word-for-word, it did a good job of conveying the creepiness of the story. The story is about a ring of stones that contain something from another world... unless someone views the stones, in which case one of them disappears. But only people who've heard about the stones can get to see them. The idea behind the story - that there's a secret field where only people who've heard the secret can see it and people who hear the secret are compelled to go the  field - is very cool in a House of Leaves kind of way.

Aside from that... I got nothing.

The last curling night

Tonight was the last regular Thursday curling night and I thought I would go and say hi - or goodbye - and pick up my curling gear. I hadn't been back in the club since I fell that night and had to start using the cane.

It was a little weird to be in there and not curling. Everything looked the same and smelled the same but it all felt different to me. I guess the fact that I was there but I can't curl there makes me see things differently.

Unfortunately there weren't too many people there tonight... and even more unfortunately, the people I used to talk to most often weren't there :( I suppose I'll see those people again next season or later, if I go some evening and they're curling.

It would be nice to be able to curl again someday. Then again, I don't really want the Femara to stop working - too many of the women I know are in the middle of treatment failures and I don't want to be one of them. Having stable cancer means more to me than curling.

Sleep, sleep, sleep all day

I should have known that after being so busy the last few days, I would sleep in today. I had all sorts of plans for the day - I was going to work on the bridesmaid's jewelry since the design has been confirmed and I thought I might get some pattern work done. Ha! Instead, I slept all day, getting up at 6pm to have breakfast and watch tv.

I'm still tired so I know that I'll sleep well when I go to sleep again. Hopefully I'll get up much earlier tomorrow so that I can do what I'd planned on doing today. I don't mind sleeping a lot because I clearly need it - but sleeping all day isn't the same as living.

I hope that when I go to Philadephia I don't get tired like this. Two of the women who are going and whom I met in Westport are not doing as well as they were before... one of them, at least, may have taken a turn for the seriously worse. I want to spend as much time as possible with them and everyone while we're together. Time is too short to spend it asleep.

It's my birthday!

I turned 40 years old today. Where has the time gone? I remember being 12, in 1981, thinking about when I would be 40 in 2009 and it seemed so, so, so far away from then. And yet here it is.

Each year around my birthday I take a little time to think about where I'm going, where I've been, whether I happy and of course I'm doing that this year. In many ways, this year is different than previous years because 40 is different to me. I sort of feel like I'm not young anymore; like the age of youth is past for me, if that makes sense. It's not that I'm old, because I'm not, but I'm no longer young either. I couldn't hang out with 20-year-olds because I wouldn't fit in with their world. I fit more into an older world, now.

At least I've already had to let go of a lot of things associated with being young because of the cancer so I don't have to do that at this point. But still, there's something about the number - 40 - that makes me stop and think harder than usual.

For the record, I am happy with who I am, what I've done, and where I'm going. I've got a pretty good life even though I've got cancer. I'm happy to be me.

Spring window shopping

For the first time in ages, I got to go to Stylesense to look at the shoes and accessories there. Because of the cane, I can't wear the awesome high-heeled shoes I love... so I'm on the lookout for awesome flat-soled shoes that I can fall in love with. I didn't find any today, unfortunately, but I did get a good look at the shoe styles.

There are a lot of very high heels - over 5" - out there. Of course these shoes use platforms, but the heels themselves are quite skinny. There aren't a lot of points of contact with the ground with these shoes. That's not to say that the woman wearing these shoes needs to worry about her feet slipping off of them; oh no. That woman's foot is strapped and laced and buckled in from toe to ankle (and sometimes to shin). No one will mistake these shoes for boots because the strapping and lacing and buckling gives a sort lattice (bondage?) effect. The open skin will also help to keep the woman's foot cool and comfortable while she's tottering around on these heels.

I also went into Fabricland and was, quite frankly, amazed at the gorgeous spring fabrics they had - and this is the one in Kitchener, which doesn't have the selection the others do! I used to have ...er, "borrowed from my sister and never returned" a skirt that I loved - it was made of the softest, prettiest cotton with just a bit of body that I loved. Since then, I've been looking for fabric that felt like that and I found it for the first time today in Fabricland. There were other beautiful cottons and jerseys and drapey fabrics, too. I wish I had a specific project for one of those fabrics... they're so pretty.

Believe it or not, I didn't buy anything today... neither shoes nor fabric. If I'd found the perfect shoe or had a project in mind for some fabric, I would have happily made a purchase... but I didn't want to buy anything just to buy stuff. That's what eBay is for. :)

Movies, movies, movies

We watched Infamous this afternoon; it's the second of two recent movies about Truman Capote and how he wrote the book In Cold Blood, about two men who killed a family of four in Kansas back in 1959 while looking for money. The first movie was award-winning Capote, which we saw some time ago.

This movie was a biopic and included "interviews" with some of his society and other friends, which gave additional insight into Capote's character. This movie was also interesting in that it implied that Capote and the killer he was interviewing developed a very close (possibly sexual) relationship. As an aside, I must say that Daniel Craig did a fine job portraying that killer, and their kiss was awesome :) That man is an awesome  actor. The movie also implied that Capote didn't necessarily quote his sources perfectly accurately, but rehearsed them beforehand in order to get the greatest impact.

These two differences might be closer to the actual truth of what happened during and after the interviews. Not that the exact truth will ever be known, of course, given that these events occurred almost 50 years ago. Still, I'd rather see something more honest and closer to the truth than glossing over it.

We very much enjoyed Infamous and think it stands both on its own and as a companion piece to Capote. Both are worth seeing if you haven't seen them.

This evening we watched the final movie from our Ghost House Underground collection: No Man's Land: Rise of the Reeker. It's apparently a sequel or prequel to Reeker but we didn't feel we missed anything even though we hadn't seen the first moviewhich we hadn't seen but we didn't feel that we missed anything. It was an interesting movie where people wind up in a "time out of time" bubble together with a serial killer who was there to dispatch anyone there. The pacing was a bit slow but the concept of the movie was good. The dialogue and acting were pretty good, too. This movie didn't have too much gore, either, although there were some gory bits. If you like this genre, you'll most likely like this movie.

Friday movie night

We finally got to see Quantum of Solace at a friend's house tonight. As a regular movie, it was ok. There was a lot of action and a reasonably realistic plot. It didn't seem much like a Bond movie, though. He wasn't as gritty as he was in Casino Royale and he definitely didn't get a chance to be as classy as usual. In many ways it felt more like a Bourne movie than a Bond movie, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. The major failing of the movie was that if you hadn't seen Casino Royale, this movie wouldn't make as much sense to you.

I also didn't like the opening sequence or the title song; the images weren't all that interesting and the song was pretty bad. Have you heard the song on the radio? No? That's because it's *that bad*.

All of that aside, if you like action-type movies with chases and subterfuge and whatnot, you might enjoy this movie. It's watchable, but I'm glad I didn't pay full theatre price for it.

BTW, in case you were wondering why I didn't have a blog entry yesterday, it was because yesterday was kind of a write-off for me. I didn't get up until 7pm - yes, 7pm. Now, I didn't get to sleep until quite late Wednesday night, so I wound up with around 16 or 17 hours of sleep, which isn't all that unusual. But getting up at 7pm - that's not normal.

My pattern had been to have about two or three days of waking up at a decent hour and getting stuff done followed by a day of sleeping for 16 or 18 hours or so. Lately, I've been waking up in the early- to mid- afternoon for a couple of days followed by a day of sleeping 16 or 18 hours or so. Who knew a person could sleep sooooo much?

Sparkly things

People who know me know that I'm attracted to bright and sparkly things. I love sequins, shiny fabric, rhinestones, and anything that would shine or sparkle under lights. I'm easily distracted by these things and love to collect them. I have a whole section of fabric that's silver, sparkly, and pretty, as well as sparkly beaded trims, rhinestones, sequins, and beads. It's not like I wear any of this stuff, though. I just collect it. Some have said that it's my Ukranian heritage that has made me like this and others think that I'm just like a crow, catching shiny things for my next.

I have another theory.

Tonight I was watching Benny Ninja on America's Next Top Model and did a little research on him and on the whose House and Ballroom scene in New York. Each House competes in a variety of drag queen competitions (Balls) to win trophies while also providing a kind of home for LGBT people, especially those who haven't got another home. There's quite a huge history on the Houses and their impact on the LGBT community.

Anyways, one article was talking about one person's sewing room, that had feathers and pearls and rhinestones and shiny fabrics everywhere... and that's when I realized it: I must have been a drag queen in a former life. I know I'm not a drag queen *now*, but I think I must have been one before. I can't think of a better explanation for my love of sparkle and theatre and spectacle :)

Finally, a decision

I finally made a decision about what to sew next. I have so many patterns that I've increased my vintage pattern storage boxes to four and I spent quite a bit of time today organizing and putting away all of my vintage patterns. After that I went through each box and picked out the patterns I want to sew. Out of the ones I picked out, this is one I'm going to prepare first:

I'm going to sew the pencil skirt and most likely the long sleeves, unless I don't have enough fabric or decide that I want short sleeves.

Of course I don't want to prepare a pattern without knowing what the final fabric will be. As you know, this is one of the reasons that I've had problems choosing a pattern; I have *so* much fabric that I was having trouble matching the fabric to the pattern.

Fortunately, looking through my fabric stash, I spied a vintage Liberty Jubilee fabric with cream polka dots on a steel-grey ground. This fabric is a 72% cotton, 18% wool twill weave and is *gorgeous*. I rummaged through my remnant pile for the contrast tie and found cream dupioni silk that perfectly matches the dots. I'm so excited; I wanted something I could wear in cooler weather that's neither dressy nor casual and I think I'm going to achieve that with this fabric and pattern combination. I can hardly wait to get started!

Although this dress is being made with a fabric containing wool, I think I'm not going to line it. Instead, I'll make a full-length slip which will protect my skin from the wool as much as a lining and can be re-used. I've got a bunch of light-coloured fabrics that I'll be sewing into summer dresses but they're too sheer to wear on their own. Full slips will help to de-sheerify the dresses and have the additional benefit of helping the dresses stand away from my body, reducing the appearance of my lumps and bumps.

I also started preparing this dress:

Every time I turn around it seems like I'm looking at this pattern. I really do want to make this dress. I think I  want to make it out of a black corduroy with a red cherry design for the dress together with a light green contrast fabric and green buttons for the tabs (and maybe the cuffs and collar).

So why haven't I prepped this dress? Is it because I don't want a waist seam? Or because I don't want the kimono sleeve? Yes. I do have this similar dress pattern:

... and I think I could use that to make the kimono bodice into separate bodice and sleeves, maybe. And I'm pretty sure that I know how to remove the waist seam. But all of that is a lot of work and I don't know if I want to do *that* much work. So we'll see; maybe I won't make all of those changes and sew the pattern as-is... or with shorter sleeves.

Either way, I'm starting work on a dress. Yippee!

To Toronto and back

The Oasis show, one of the bigger bead shows in the area, was on this weekend in Toronto. Originally, I wasn't sure I that was going to go to the show. I don't exactly *need* any beads and I have been spending money on patterns and fabric lately. On the other hand, I do have this bridesmaid order and although I have beads for it, I could use some others. You see, the bride didn't want a lot of sparkle (it's a beach wedding), so I could use some less-sparkly beads.

So I ended up driving to Toronto for the show this afternoon. I did spend a bit more there than I probably should have.... but I *did* spent less at this show than I've spent at any of the previous Oasis shows. That's practically the same as spending practically nothing, right?

Ok, it isn't, but I did get a good selection of beads for the bridesmaids. I got some gorgeous dyed mother-of-pearl that matches the colour scheme and has swirls that echo the ocean. I think they'll work perfectly. I also got some small apatite and moonstone faceted rondelles (like very tiny faceted donuts with small holes) to use as accent beads. Of course I bought some things for me, too :) I did pass up the graduated aqua chalcedony rondelle necklace as I really had no use for rondelles that big. It was so pretty, though.

I figured that since I was already in Toronto, I would stop in at Good for Her (may not be safe for work, especially past the home page). At the risk of TMI, you might remember that I have vaginismus. I've been meaning to go to this store because I thought they might have something that could help. I was right.

The store is awesome. One reason that I went today (aside from the fact that I was in TO; I'm in the greater area occasionally and could have gone another time) is that Sunday afternoons and Thursdays at lunch are designated for women only. I thought I might not feel comfortable going to a store like this if there were men there - especially since I was nervous - and I thought a women-only environment would be better for me.

The store is small but is well-lit and has a lot of product out on the shelves. The staff are very friendly and helpful and are quite knowledgeable about the products they carry. When I went in, they offered me tea or water, which put me at ease and also kind of helped to break the ice. I was comfortable talking to the staff about why I was there and what I needed and I would definitely go back there if I needed something else. I highly recommend this store; if you want or need the kind of product they carry, it's a great place to buy it.

The store also has a lot of different workshops for men, women, and couples. I've looked at those before; some of them look like they might be useful or interesting. They seem to be aimed at all different kinds of people. I think if I was to take a workshop or class like that, I'd take it from there.

A lot of movie-watching

We finally got around to going out and seeing Watchmen . It was better than I thought it was going to be; there were parts that dragged in the graphic novel and could have made the movie feel much slower than it did. Don't get me wrong; the movie is long at almost three hours but it doesn't feel long until the end. I found the movie a bit easier to follow than the novel but I don't know if that would be the case for people who hadn't read the novel.

I thought the first half of the movie was better than the second, not because the story was better but because the cinematography was better. Many of the scenes made extensive use of reflections which added an interesting subtext to the movie.... and then that technique was abandoned. Then again, maybe I just didn't like the last, Antarctica scenes.

Even so, the movie was pretty good; we both enjoyed it and recommend it.

So there's nothing wrong with a good mainstream movie that most people have seen (or at least heard of), but you know that we like movies that are a little more off the beaten track, as it were.

Tonight's less mainstream movie was Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. It's a zombie movie where the source of the zombies is.... wait for it.... mutant chickens!!! Oh, it's something else :) In many ways, the movie is funny in the way that all of those parody-type movies are funny: it's got lots of puns and silly jokes, a little nudity, quite a lot of political incorrectness, and a silly premise. It's a zombie movie! With chickens!

The movie has a lot of blood and lots of gore in a sort of funny, over-the-top, only partly-believable (but still grotesque) way. There's a lot of blood, a lot of vomiting, a lot of disgusting gore, a lot of sex, poo, and fart jokes, and a lot of hilarious dialogue. Oh, and did I mention that there were songs? Yep, there are songs. They're hilarious - and even better, many had interpretive dances to go along with them.

If you don't mind a bit of gore and you like a lot of puns and the idea of half-human, half-chicken zombies - and really, who doesn't? - you'll love this movie. Ok, you might not love it, but you'll laugh at it (when you're not closing your eyes because of the gore, that is).

Pick one

It looks like a sewing pattern explosion happened in my sewing room. I didn't realize how many new patterns I have that hadn't been put away. They're almost all in bags now and they're all over the floor.

I probably would have left them all on the card table but I *still* couldn't decide what to sew. I thought that by organizing and sorting my patterns in the same room as my fabric, I'd be able to figure out what to sew and which fabric to use.

This plan didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I keep picking out these GORGEOUS evening dress patterns that I love so, so, so much... but I don't need evening dresses. They're gorgeous, and one of them will probably wind up being a dress I wear to a summer wedding, but I don't need any of them right now.

No, what I need now are spring day dresses. And I have a ton of patterns for spring day dresses. I have patterns for button-front dresses, princess-seam dresses, plain-front dresses, dresses with raglan sleeves, dresses with kimono sleeves (sleeves all in one with the bodice), short-sleeve dresses, three-quarter-sleeve dresses, dresses with straight skirts, dresses with a-line skirts, dresses with fullness in the back, dresses with pleated skirts, dresses from the thirties, forties, and fifties (and the sixties and seventies, but I'm not as interested in those dresses)... you see the problem.

Maybe I should just close my eyes and pick one. That would certainly waste less time.

I get to go to the conference

I received word today that my grant application was approved. I will be getting about $30 less than I'd asked for but I'm ok with that as that difference is practically the exchange rate.

I've registered for the conference and booked my flight. I have to book the hotel but the rate for the conference (which they'll pay half of) is higher than the rate online. I know I should just go ahead and book the hotel at the lower rate but I've contacted the grant person anyway to be sure that this will be ok. I'm going to get a room on my own and pay the extra; it's not that I don't mind sharing with someone, but in many ways I'd rather be on my own or with Ian.

I've started to be quite excited about going as I know some of the people that'll be there and we're making plans to have dinner Friday and Saturday nights. I arrive Friday at lunch so I'll have Friday afternoon to do a little bit of exploring. The hotel isn't downtown but in a suburb, I think, and that's ok - there must be things to do there.

This conference gives me a *reason* to sew me some clothes, and hopefully this will allow me to actually pick some patterns to sew. I won't be able to devote my full attention to sewing as I'm making the jewelry for the bride, but I'll have time afterward as long as I don't sleep all day and I don't surf the internet all the hours I'm awake.

Where did the day go?

Yesterday was a crazy busy day! I was up early to go with Ian to an appointment and then I had my hair cut and had to go grocery and water shopping. After all that - which is more than I usually do in a day - I crashed. Ian called at one point and I fell back asleep afterward.

And then I slept more than half the day away *again* and I'm still tired. I don't have the Pamidronate as an excuse this time - so why am I so, so tired?

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel well-rested. The days have been so beautiful that I feel like it isn't really living to be sleeping through them.

An ah-ha! moment

This pattern grading thing is going to get the best of me, I swear. You know I've been working on grading up vintage patterns for a while now and I've run into problems now and again. I bought two sizes of the same pattern to compare the grading, looked up measurement charts on the internet, pulled down a book I'd borrowed from my mom, and I realized something: although the bust, waist, and hip measurements change from era to era, the grading is the same.

Yep, they're all graded the same way. Ah-ha!

Well, they're all graded the same way when you get up to my size, anyways. And it turns out that I haven't been using that way. I've been doing it incorrectly. First I tried using a method popular on the web and referenced all over the place, but that method isn't all that precise and it doesn't really explain what to do when grading over huge sizes. Then I tried using a method that is probably the correct way to grade but not is what is used by the pattern companies. As a result, I was having a hard time getting the bust to fit properly. And the whole time, I needed to use the method in my mom's book to grade the pattern up to the right bust size and then adjust the waist and hip.

So of course I'm aching to go ahead and trace up a pattern and grade it... so why haven't I started doing that? Sigh. I just can't decide on *which* pattern I should use. I've got so many, and so many that I want to work with. Being paralyzed by indecision is not a new feeling for me - there is such a thing as too much choice. I guess I just need to pick one, any one, and work on it. And then hopefully not have the same problem choosing fabric as I'm having choosing a pattern. :) I have lots of gorgeous fabric and I worry that I'll waste awesome fabric on a pattern for which it won't work.

Should I stay or should I go?

Some of the YSC people are talking about going to a conference in Philadelphia in April. Elizabeth Edwards is going to be there and they're having talks aimed at women who are living with mets. Part of me wants to go and hear what they have to say because it sounds interesting, and of course I'd love to meet up with people. But on the flip side, it's not a non-zero cost and traveling can be a hassle.

Looking at the website, it seems that they have scholarships that can be used to cover the registration, transportation and half of the hotel costs, even for people in Canada! So I've applied, and if I get the full amount I applied for I'll go. I put in an estimated airfare amount based on the rates I saw but I don't want to book something I might not get to do.

In the application I had to say why I need the grant and what I would do with the knowledge gained. I figure that I could work with Hopespring on bringing back some information for them. I hadn't actually thought that part through but I'm pretty sure I could work something out.

Anyways, we'll see - it's worth the few minutes to apply for the grant, and if I get it, then it might be a fun and worthwhile trip.

And another one gone

Remember I went to Westport in November? I shared a hotel room with a woman from the YSC board to cut costs. She was my age and she was amazing; she had a cane and she managed to lug a huge suitcase and a wheelchair through train connections on her own. I was quite impressed and she was one of the first people I thought of when I started using my cane because she was so nonchalant about it. I wish I'd told her that.

I found out yesterday that she died on March 1st. :( Of all the people that were there that weekend, she was one of the last I'd expected to have died so soon after the trip. She was doing quite well at the time and I guess she started to go downhill in February, with brain mets showing up and then her liver failing. Even still, she deteriorated really fast.

I'm sad because she's gone and I'm sad that she went so quickly. I guess this just goes to show that it's important to do the things you want to do now because there might not be a later. You just don't know.

Speaking of doing things now, the UW juggling show was tonight. It was really, really good; the caliber of people performing in the show has increased a lot over the last few years. I was especially impressed by the unicyclist, the yoyo guy, and the guy doing the finale. Oh, and it turns out that we'll have two people staying with us tonight instead of just one. Good thing our couch is super-comfy.

How much can one person sleep? Too much.

You probably didn't know this, but I've been sleeping a lot this week. Wednesday, for example, I got up at 6pm. Yes, 6pm! And that's after going to sleep around 11pm the night before!

Then today I got up at 11am but fell asleep around 4pm until Ian got home at 8pm. Of course while I was awake I did manage to clean the bathroom and wash some sheets; we have a jugging guest staying with us tomorrow night and I wanted those things, at least, to be clean for our guest. The rest of the house remains the mess that it is.

Anyways, I couldn't figure out why I was sooo tired. Yes, I'd driven to and from Oakville on Tuesday and Thursday, but driving doesn't usually tire me out so much. Not to the point where I sleep until early evening, in any case.

And then I remembered that I'd received my Pamidronate on Monday, and I know that one of its side effects is to make me really, really tired. I guess it also makes me kind of slow if I can't even figure out why I'm so tired!

This weekend is the University of Waterloo annual juggling festival, and while I won't spend much time at the event but I'll definitely head to the show at 7pm in Hagey Hall. I'm sure I can manage to be up and about by then :)

Video games, movies, and guns

By now I'd guess you've all heard about the man in Germany who took one of his father's guns (the one he'd practiced shooting) and 200-odd rounds of ammo for it and went to his old high school where he shot a number of people (almost all female), after which he hijacked a car and went to a town and shot more people.

This is a horrifying incident.

The police are investigating; on the guy's computer, they found that he'd played violent video games and a lot of horror movies, and they think that these led the guy to kill all of these people. I don't know - thinking about hurting people, watching gory movies, and playing violent video games don't necessarily add up to shooting a number of people. I guess that the games and movies, in combination with someone who is seriously disturbed in particular ways, could possibly desensitize that someone enough so that they could kill people. But if that were true, I'd think that there would be a lot more of this kind of massacre going on.

After all, I've seen a number of video games, both violent and otherwise, and I watch a LOT of  horror movies. And I've been pretty depressed with a good dose of self-hatred to go along with it. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not unusual in having fantasized about hurting someone when I was angry. I'm not alone in these things (although I'm in the minority in that I'm female) but most of these people don't just kill people... even if, deep inside, they want to. But I'd never, ever go out and massacre people - and neither would most people.

Aside from the fact that this fellow was seriously disturbed, I think the blame for this tragedy lies not on the movies he watched or the games he played, but squarely the guns he used in his house. Simply put, he had the access and the ability to use the guns; if he hadn't had either, this massacre might not have happened.

I know that "guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people" - but maybe it's time for people to not have quite so many guns. Especially in the US, but even in places like Germany and here in Canada. No disturbed teenager (and it must have been fairly obvious that he was disturbed) should have access to guns like he did.

Last night's PRC

As you know, I've been watching Project Runway Canada. It's one of my favourite shows :) This post has some information about last night's show but I don't think there are any significant spoilers here. However, if you're the kind of person who doesn't want to know anything about a show before watching it, then you might want to skip this post until after you've seen this episode.












Still here? Ok.

On last night's show, the designers made dresses for women who'd had breast cancer; the dresses will now be auctioned off and all the money paid will go to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. This is definitely not my favourite breast cancer charity as they'd refused to accept money from a group of strippers who'd raised it in memory of a dancer with mets. Still, the fact that the money is going to a large, recognized charity is a good thing.

I was also very surprised to see that the women who'd had cancer weren't all older women. There was a young woman who'd had breast cancer at 27 and there was a woman who had metastatic cancer (although they didn't say this on the show). Unfortunately, at the end of the show, there was a message that said that one woman - sadly, the woman paired with the losing designer who had made the ugliest dress - had died after taping but before the show aired. A tiny bit of research dress auction site showed that she'd had mets and had died. How sad that she died before seeing herself on tv :( .

If I remember rightly, on season one of Project Runway Canada, dresses were auctioned off in support of Iman's favourite charity. I like that this show is giving to charity and wish other shows would do this, too. It's a way to give back to people and makes the television industry appear a little less selfish.

Finally, a use for surfing the interweb

A bride who lives in the region contacted me about doing earring and necklace sets for her bridesmaids. I'm very excited about doing this as I like custom work. The bride picked out the earrings she wants and I've been working on different necklace designs. I came up with one this morning that I like very much; it lends itself well to variations in case the doesn't like the first design or I have different numbers of beads.

The bridesmaids are wearing shades of turquoise and while I have some beads that are a similar colour, I don't have enough in the exact shades that I need. So I spent the afternoon looking for the right beads in a variety of places. I ended up copying pictures of different beads I was thinking of buying and looking at them side-by-side with the dress photo. I know that it's really hard to determine true colour on a monitor so I hope I got the right beads. I did get enough, and from different places, so that I have options. And if I have extras left over, well, that's ok because they're gorgeous. And a great colour.

I guess you might say that my internet surfing skillz finally came in handy today. :)

A lighter movie day

It's curling season! The fact that I can't curl right now doesn't matter since I still get to *watch* the Brier. That will definitely keep me/us occupied when we're not doing something else.

Fortunately, it being the weekend, tv channels show movies... and so we got to watch Clerks II. It's pretty funny, I must say. Yes, there are many silly bits with men who won't/can't grow up and there's lots of inappropriate statements, but after all that, it's still hilarious. Of course not much happens during the movie; these are movies about hanging out in a place and talking with friends, not about going places and tracking people down or anything. If you don't like Kevin Smith movies, you won't like this one, either, but if you do like his movies you'll probably love this one as well.

Tomorrow I get my Pamidronate. Yippee? Hopefully it'll go smoothly by which I mean they won't forget about me and they won't be running too late. I suppose it doesn't matter either way, but it's frustrating to be there waiting for a while only to find out that there's been a mix-up. 

It's movie day

The weather went from gorgeous to .... not-so-gorgeous. It didn't get nearly as warm and it rained and rained and rained. We spent the day inside, watching tv and movies. And surfing the internet (that was me doing that part).

The main movie we watched and very much enjoyed was 13: Game of Death. It's about a guy who's having a really, really bad day and who is asked to participate in a series of game challenges; if he finishes all 13 challenges, he'll get a huge sum of money. The challenges start out small and get progressively more difficult and anti-social as they go on. There are twists, of course. The plot is quite good and so are most of the actors (although some of the extras might have been a little over-the-top). There's some implied but not that much actual gore and there are definitely a few "ewwwww, grossssss" moments. Really. Even so, it's definitely worth a watch.

Tomorrow's going to be all weird because the clocks spring forward. The daylight savings time changes always mess me up.

Oh what a beautiful day

I have to admit that I haven't done much of anything recently. Instead, I've been wasting time surfing the internet. Lately, I've been working my way through the best of Craigslist (some of those entries are hilarious) as well as Passive Aggressive Notes and Photoshop Disasters. And I can waste hours over at Project Rungay or Go Fug Yourself. Both of those sites cover a lot of the same pictures and it's interesting to compare the two. I also read a number of people's blogs each day. I'm getting to be very, very good at doing nothing useful.

But today the temperature got up to 17C!!! It was soooo gorgeous outside that I *had* to abandon the laptop and go for a walk. It wasn't so bad, walking around the neighbourhood with my cane. I can go pretty fast with the cane once I get going. My hips didn't hurt too much during and right after my walk today and I'm hoping they won't hurt tomorrow. The laptop wasn't any worse for not having been used for a while, either.

I don't think we'e going to have such great temperatures for that long, unfortunately; it's cold in the West and I expect it to be cold here soon. I'm happy as long as I can get out and enjoy the nice weather when its here. After that, I've got the internet.

Getting started on new pills

I talked to the pharmacist about taking something for my back and hip pain and she (well, the student pharmacist  - she wouldn't let me talk to the real pharmacist) recommended that I take the glucosamine/chondroitin supplement as opposed to the Lakota. She felt that the Lakota had less proof than the the other stuff. I asked whether or not I should take the glucosamine/chondroitin with MSM and she said that some people felt the MSM helped but that she had no recommendation about it.

I picked some up without the MSM (it was the first bottle I reached for) and I started taking that last night. I'll try it with the MSM next time; if that doesn't work, I'll try the Lakota.

An unusual appointment

You know how sometimes I get a woogly back? Normally it happens when I'm tired or when I'm going through withdrawl on my fentanyl patch - and both of those events usually occur in the evening. Not today, though.

Instead, it happened this afternoon while I was in the chair at the dentist's. Sigh. It started when the hygienist used a drill-thing to do the scaling off the inside of my teeth. The sound of the thing really bothered me and then the woogles started. She ended up not using the thing partway through but by then it was too late - once my back starts woogling it's really hard to stop it, and by then it was woogling in earnest. By the end, she's do one tooth, wait for me to thrash around a bit and to finally settle, and then start working on a new tooth.

My fentanyl patch is due to be changed today, so maybe it wasn't working so well this afternoon. And I *was* a little tired; when I got home I slept for a few hours. Even so, I felt pretty silly there at the dentist. Most adults are perfectly capable of lying still while for half an hour - but not me, at least today.

What made the day better was realizing that America's Next Top Model cycle 12 started tonight AND that Fashion Television is having a free preview for the entire month of March! What an excuse to do a whole lot of nothing all month :)

Now we know more

My oncologist and I went over the MRI results today. She ordered it in the first place so it makes sense for her to discuss it with me. Her suggestions and conclusions are different than my family doctor's.... in a good way :)

She doesn't think that I have arthritis. Instead, she thinks I have arthralgia, which is arthritis-like pain but that isn't actually arthritis, and is a side-effect of the Femara. In other words, the hip and back pain is a side-effect of the Femara that I've been on for 2 1/2 years. I've had pain in my thumbs, wrists, and ankles for some time now, and it's possible that the longer I'm on Femara, the larger the joints affected by this side effect.

The best way to determine whether the pain is arthralgia or arthritis is to go off the Femara completely. But the Femara is working - my tumour markers are down and my scans show no new cancer - and so it doesn't make sense to off the Femara. Sure, I could go on another hormonal treatment.... but why stop the one that works *before* it stops working? And what if the next treatment didn't work? I'm not willing to take a chance on letting my cancer spread further right now, so we're not going to stop the Femara.

Not that it matters much whether it's arthralgia or arthritis... my oncologist said that they treat arthralgia as though it were arthritis. The kicker is that there aren't really any modern medical treatments for it. However, my oncologist doesn't want me to live in pain and wants us to think outside the box on treating the pain by exploring non-modern/non-Western treatments like acupuncture, massage, hypnosis, Lakota or glycosamine/chondroitin, and possibly physiotherapy.

At this point, I just want this pain to go away. Having to live with constant pain is no way to live. Therefore, I'm willing to try things to get rid of it that I might not have considered before. To start, I think I'm going to begin taking Lakota or glycosamine/chondroitin. I'll have a chat with my pharmacist tomorrow about these remedies to figure out which might work better for me and to also be sure that the remedy won't interfere with my current medications.

Next, I'm going to see about getting some acupuncture done. My oncologist said that people have had very good results with it as long as the practitioner is experienced. She said that it is very important that I find someone who has years of experience not just in practicing acupuncture, but also in treating this kind of pain. Otherwise it might hurt or it won't give the right kind of benefit for me.

All I have to do to make this second step happen is to find someone who can do it. Normally my oncologist would just refer me to someone but she doesn't know anyone in the area who's got enough experience. I get to be the guinea pig here :) . I'll check with the cancer support center (Hopespring) where I go for my meditation classes; I'm hoping that they'll be able to refer me to someone in the area (or even tell me who might not be suitable). If that doesn't work I'll let my fingers do the walking on the internet and phone. If my experience with the person and treatment is positive, then my oncologist might refer other people to that practitioner.

In addition to these two new approaches, I'm still going to try and lose some weight and I do still want to do some aqua-fit to get some exercise. Hopefully, between all of these measures, the pain will go away. Cross your fingers!

Oh - and if you're interested in the actual scan results, the MRI showed that I have some slight disk bulging issues at my L4-L5 vertebrae. The bone scan also showed, for the first time, that I have some bone degeneration at L4-L5 to go along with the known degeneration at L5-S1. I was surprised at this; I didn't think that vertebrae degeneration would start marching up my spine like this. Weird.

The bone scan also showed increased takeup in my knuckles, wrists, and ankles which corresponds to the areas where I already had joint pain. I'm sure that increased takeup will show up in my hips one of these days, even though nothing showed up this time. The bone scan also showed increased takeup in my left knee, which is the one I think I broke ages ago. Interestingly, this is the first time that the report has mentioned the left knee since... well, since the very first bone scan I've ever had. I re-started Pamidronate before the scan and maybe it's healing these areas, causing the increased uptake.

And that's it! I'm feeling WAY more positive today. Not only might I not be in pain forever, but there might  be things I can do NOW to lessen the pain. That's the kind of news I love! I also have to say that I'm really, really happy with my oncologist's approach to this whole thing. She was positive and determined to help me find a way to deal with the pain, which is a helluva lot more than my family doctor gave me yesterday. Yesterday, I was left with the prospect of being in this agonizing pain forever with no hope of it lessening. Today, I'm hopeful that there might be a way out from the pain. I know that nothing is guaranteed, but I have hope. I love my oncologist - she's AWESOME!

Well, now we know

My family doctor had the MRI results and it didn't show anything. He didn't have the xray report, but he's concluded that the pain in my hips and back are due to.... arthritis.

Yep, arthritis. Another chronic, incurable health condition to add to my previously existing chronic, incurable health condition (metastatic breast cancer). Really, I was fine with just one chronic, incurable health condition - am I lucky, or what? I guess the best thing about this illness is that it won't kill me like the cancer (most likely) will... instead, it'll just add to my pain.

I'm happy that I don't have anything else seriously wrong with my health, but I'm not exactly jumping with joy here. Living with chronic pain sucks and the prospect of living with more of it.. well, sucks more. Sigh.

So.... talking to my doctor, one thing that I can do that might help is to lose weight. My weight is as high as it's ever been and I could stand to lose at least 15 pounds. Maybe even 20. Or 25. I've lost that weight before and I've maintained each of those weights so I know it's possible... but each time I've lost weight, I did it through a combination of eating less and exercising more.

Exercising more is tricky when my mobility is limited. Because the arthritis is in my hip, I need to be careful about doing weight-bearing exercises because I could just give myself more pain - exercising once and then being laid up for weeks isn't going to help me lose weight.

So I'm going to call the swimplex and see about one of the aqua-fit classes. They have a lot of them (one is an arthritic class in the swirlpool; that might work). Hopefully I won't be the youngest person there... and even if I am, well, I need to be able to exercise somehow. As I get stronger (and littler), I might be able to do more weight-bearing exercise in the gym. And then maybe the pain will decrease.